We have at least three boards having this issue. On two of the boards, the fm1-mac5 port usually connects (initializes and obtains an IP address from the DHCP server) on boot-up more than 50% of the time. The third board almost never is able to connect. This is also true if the port is configured for static IP address via the /etc/network/interfaces file.

When the port doesn't connect, the TX packets stat for the port increments while the RX packets stat is stuck at zero, making it appear as though either outgoing packets are not making it onto the media or incoming packets are not getting received.

When the problem occurs, the port status looks like this right after the system boots:

root@b4860qds:~# ifconfig

fm1-mac5 Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr 00:04:9f:00:a9:04

UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST MTU:1500 Metric:1

RX packets:0 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 frame:0

TX packets:6 errors:0 dropped:0 overruns:0 carrier:0

collisions:0 txqueuelen:1000

RX bytes:0 (0.0 B) TX bytes:1296 (1.2 KiB)

Memory:fe4e8000-fe4e8fff

Note that the port status shows UP, and there are transmit packets showing, but no receive packets.

If I subsequently try to disable the port using the ifconfig command, I get this: